


Stop Crying Your Heart Out

by HollyEDolly



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Crying, F/M, Lots of Crying, Prison, Talking, heart to heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1995165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HollyEDolly/pseuds/HollyEDolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he stands slowly she can really see the damage, he’s lost weight a lot of weight, his face is gaunt and purple shadows bloom under the once warm brown eyes. Stubble shadows his jaw which is covered in bruises; from the way he limps towards the bars she knows his prison garb hides more. Tears prick her eyes, she’d told herself she would wear her anger as a shield that she wouldn’t let herself feel for him but...who was she kidding? She wasn’t May she couldn’t use her pain, she could only feel it but did that make her weak? In all honesty she doesn’t know. He doesn’t speak he just watches her with mild interest and a hint of sorrow, she feels a tear trickle down her cheek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop Crying Your Heart Out

**Author's Note:**

> A one shot for Skyeward, this one just came to me and I had to write it.

Get up (get up)  
Come on (come on)  
Why're you scared? (I'm not scared)  
You'll never change  
What's been and gone

Cos all of the stars  
Are fading away  
Just try not to worry  
You'll see them some day  
Take what you need  
And be on your way  
And stop crying your heart out  
(Stop Crying Your Heart Out, Oasis)

It’s been a while since she’d seen him; she couldn’t bring herself to come here at first seeing him behind bars would just be...too real. It meant facing the fact that this wasn’t all some fucked up nightmare; this wasn’t something she could fix with a snarky comment or a witty quip. There was no avoiding the fact that whichever way you looked at it he had betrayed them, had betrayed her, she had trusted him opened up to him, had let him get under her skin and wrap his way around her heart and he had thrown all of that away for what?

Well that was the million dollar question, why the moment he found everything he’d always wanted but never had would he sacrifice it for a man like Garrett? She could hack the system, she could go through his medical records, his school transcripts, his criminal file she could piece together his past bit by bit but the only way to really know, was to ask the man himself. Is she ready to hear what he has to say? Is she ready to understand? Can she understand? She’d said no before but anger had driven her then...and now? That was a good question, one she didn’t know the answer too if she was honest.  
A million thoughts run through her head as she pulls the SUV up outside the prison gates, mostly all the reasons why this is a bad idea. She’s opening herself up to a world of pain and she doesn’t know if her heart can stand anymore but she has to know.

It’s almost midnight when she enters the facility she’ll have to go down to his cell and the governor will not let her inside, she can only talk to him through the bars. The tirade of abuse she’d gotten when she’d called was a feat J. Jonah Jameson would have been proud of sure it was late but at least she’d asked, she could have easily broken in. Somehow though, she didn’t think Coulson would be too pleased at the prospect of explaining why one of his agents had infiltrated a super max prison just to have a chit chat with an inmate.

A rather sullen looking guard leads her down dark corridors, it’s dismal in here and she doubts it looks any better in the daylight.  
“He’s in solitary” the surly guard grunts at her “I ain’t hanging around girly so you’ll have to holler when you’re ready to go. Don’t be wandering the halls neither there’s some dangerous folk in here who’d just love to get their hands on a pretty little thing like you. This ain’t Disneyland”

“No kidding” she murmurs.

“Here” he stops outside a sparse cell, there’s a steel cot and a toilet and that’s it, when she peers inside she gasps. He’s curled in on himself huddled in a ball on the hard cot, even though the only light comes from a flickering wall lamp outside the cell she can see he’s in bad shape. “Not a pretty sight is it?” the guard comments as he bangs on the bars with his baton “Son you got a visitor” the guard turns back to her with a look she could swear was filled with sadness “I’m gonna leave you now, remember what I told ya” She nods shakily still looking at the ghost of a man that’s staring at her in disbelief.

When he stands slowly she can really see the damage, he’s lost weight a lot of weight, his face is gaunt and purple shadows bloom under the once warm brown eyes. Stubble shadows his jaw which is covered in bruises; from the way he limps towards the bars she knows his prison garb hides more. Tears prick her eyes, she’d told herself she would wear her anger as a shield that she wouldn’t let herself feel for him but...who was she kidding? She wasn’t May she couldn’t use her pain, she could only feel it but did that make her weak? In all honesty she doesn’t know. He doesn’t speak he just watches her with mild interest and a hint of sorrow, she feels a tear trickle down her cheek.

“Ward” she whispers. 

“Y-you should go he croaks” his voice is rough; they’d said the fractured larynx may never heal properly that the damage could be permanent.

“I should” she nods.

“But you won’t, you never were very good at following orders” there’s a small hint of a smile that anyone else would have missed, a kind of nostalgic fondness that’s gone almost as soon as it appears.

“No” she agrees “Rules were never my strong point”

“Coulson won’t be happy about this” his face takes on a look she knows all too well, the disapproving SO look she’s filled with a deep sense of loss all of a sudden as she’s transported back as a thousand memories slam into her, memories that have all been tainted by his actions and she curses him for it. “You’re risking a lot to see me, why?” he asks timidly.

“I had to know” she whispers, he nods like he’d expected this but he couldn’t have she’d been offered the chance to see him numerous times. Offered the chance to put old wounds to bed but each time she’d refused, they must have told him that, used her pain against him, she may not have come with them but she’d seen the tapes of his interrogations.

She puts her back to the ice cold wall and slides down until she’s sitting crossed legged on the concrete floor; he mimics her position resting his head against the bars. “Why?” she stumbles over the word so that it sounds like a choked plea “Just tell me why?”

“He saved me” he sighs heavily knowing without her needing to explain what she’s asking.

“From what?” she steadies herself this time.

“My family, myself, life, everything” he laughs but there’s no humour in it.

“I saw your file from juvie, what your parents tried to do to you, your brother...but why didn’t you tell anyone? You could h-have told them w-what they did to you, y-you had choices, you didn’t have to go with him” she falls over her words as tears threaten again.

“I could have but Skye you live in the real world, we both do. Who was going to believe a problem kid? I know you so I know you looked at everything you could find on me and so would the prosecutors. They would have told the jury I was a bad kid that I was a menace, a monster and maybe they were right. My life would have been over Maynard was going to make sure of that and then what? Go to prison and when I got out no education, no skills what would I have become Skye? A better man?” his tone is one of bitterness.

What does she say? What has he said that wasn’t the truth, this is the world they live in and it doesn’t give two shits about troubled kids, she knew that all too well. She’d been in the system seen what happened to kids that couldn’t adapt it’s part of the reason she ran away, even if she’d known what she did now would it have mattered? Maybe...maybe not.

“I told you I wasn’t a good man” his voice is small almost childlike in his resignation.

“You’re right you’re not, you’ve done terrible things killed innocent people and for what? I don’t understand, I didn’t want to at first but...arghhh” she shoves her fingers through her hair.

“I didn’t want to you know, I didn’t want any of this” she sees him shed a tear of his own “I didn’t want to hurt anyone; I wanted to carry out my mission and leave. He promised me there’d be no bloodshed it was just supposed to be recon, no-one was supposed to die. I didn’t want to hurt May, Fitz...You. I know it doesn’t count for anything but...I’m sorry for everything. I...” he stumbles over his words as though each one costs him “Do you know when I was a kid I dreamed about becoming an astronaut, I wanted to leave everything behind, leave the earth, maybe even the galaxy behind and now...” he pauses, he looks absolutely lost and although she knows it shouldn’t it breaks her heart.

“And now?” she prods.

“And now I just keep thinking about all that potential, all those dreams, I think I set fire to them when I burned down that house and I think I set fire to myself as well. I made the wrong choice Skye, I could have been good, could have been the hero” the tears slide thick and fast now down both of their faces. What she does next surprises them both, she crawls over to the cell where he sits and pulls him to her, separated by the bars as they are its awkward but she lets him cry lets him mourn the boy he was and the man he could have been. No matter how angry she is, how much pain he’s caused her and the people she cares about, she can’t stop her compassion knowing what she does she can’t not feel his pain. It doesn’t make any of this OK but...she gets it now or she’s starting too.

“You’re lost Ward; you’re weak because you don’t know who you are. Your whole life you let others tell you who you are but Garrett’s gone now, so now’s your chance to be the man you want to be. You can’t blame your past anymore you have to let it go, cut it off start again. It’s hard, it’s something you work at everyday but if you keep trying, keep getting up when life knocks you down you can do it. You can be the hero Ward” she takes his face in her hands “You can be a better man”

“Don’t waste your sympathy on me Skye, I’m not worth it” he mumbles.

“Listen to me Grant Ward you can sit here thinking about the man you could have been, about how everyone did you wrong and what a screw up are or you can damn well do something about it!!!” her hands drop from his face as she stares him down, she’s not letting him get away with this self pitying bullshit.  
“It’s not that easy, I killed innocent people Skye you said it yourself how I supposed to make that right?” he protests.

“You can’t nothing you do now will bring them back but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make amends. Tell them, tell them everything you know help us take down Raina and Quinn help us stop them hurting anyone else. Just show us that you are worth saving that there is good in you, give me something anything to hold onto because I can’t...”

“Can’t what Skye?” he asks with baited breath.

“Because when I look at you I don’t see a traitor or a murderer. When I look at you all I see is my grumpy ass SO, the man that taught me how to defend myself, how to tell the difference between the safety and the magazine release. The man that believed in me, that trained me, the man that risked himself to protect me and maybe that shouldn’t mean anything now but it does. It still counts for something and I hate that, I hate that I’m questioning myself for you” her voice breaks. She is questioning her very nature over this her compassion has always been her greatest strength, she finds solace in love, a hope that drives her forwards when everything around her is falling apart but how many people have to die? How many friends can she lose before she loses faith in everything she once believed in.

“That’s all the others see Skye maybe you should too maybe its for the best if you...if you hate me. Makes it easier to let go” he murmurs looking down at his feet.

“Well that’s where you’re wrong because it doesn’t make anything easier it just makes it worse, it’s like bile it burns me from the inside it’s worse than sadness or heartbreak. It sits there like something rotten in your stomach festering till it consumes you, you don’t eat you don’t sleep, your hate is all you think about until one day you look in the mirror and you don’t recognise the spiteful creature staring back at you. Nothing about this is easy, letting go of what you did of what you meant to me, of how you threw that away it hurts like hellfire. Like someone took a knife and twisted it into my heart but I can’t go on like this, something has got to give. If you were the villain you’re trying so hard to convince everyone you are maybe this would be easy...but you’re not and we both know that” just saying the words out loud purging herself of everything she’d been holding onto since all this had begun, it felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. All those emotions that had been crushing her before somehow seemed to lighten just a little.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness Skye” he chances a glance at her before looking down again.

“No” she shakes her head “You don’t, but that is not you’re call. If I forgive you it’s not for you, it’s what I need because I shouldn’t have to live like this because you screwed up” her tears are back but so is her old spark, she feels the conviction in her words feels the truth. Maybe she didn’t need answers maybe what she needs is relief.

He nods “You’re right, you shouldn’t” he smiles sadly at her.

She sighs heavily she can’t make any decisions now not really she needs to think about this away from him, he hasn’t told her anything she couldn’t have guessed herself but then...if she was honest did she really expect him too? “Are you OK?” she asks because she can’t stop herself.

He doesn’t answer at first “I’m...I will be. I-I I’m glad you came to see me I know you didn’t do it for me but still Thanks for coming” he reaches for her hand and then pulls back when he realises his faux pas, she reaches through the bars and takes his in hers it’s as bruised as the rest of his exposed skin. Squeezing reassuringly she offers him a teary eyed smile, it’s the smallest gesture of kindness but she can see it means the world to him. 

“I have to go now” she informs him gently before releasing his hand and pushing herself up, he rises unsteadily sucking in a breath as he pulls some unseen injury. 

“Guard” she shouts.

“Will you come again?” he asks her hopefully.

“I-I” she pauses “Maybe” she hears the guards footsteps echoing down the silent corridors. “Grant y-you just think about what I said OK? You’re stronger than you think, you can change, show them you can then maybe things will be easier for you”. She’s not stupid she knows they torture him, knows the other inmates beat on him and it makes her sick to her stomach. All of a sudden she doesn’t want to leave him here; it feels wrong she’s jolted from her thoughts by the arrival of the guard.

“OK missy let’s get going” he grunts like before but he spares a nod for Ward who smiles in return seems like an odd exchange.

“Bye Skye” he grips the bars his eyes never leaving hers.

“Bye” she whispers before following Mr Surly down the corridor she doesn’t look back at him, she can’t as emotion bubbles in her chest.

“Not nice is it?” the old guard comments, she could swear she detects sympathy in his tone much like before it’s so vague she’s not sure it’s there. He’s an older man probably been doing this a long time.

“No” she replies quietly.

“Poor kid never did stand much of a chance” he comments seriously.

“You read his file?” she’s curious now.

“No” he laughs shaking his head “Been doing this job now for over 40 years and I’ve seen a lot of Grant Wards in my time. Seems the world gets bigger every day, more advanced, we got heroes and aliens and god knows what else but we still got the same problems. Still got daddy’s beating on their kids, still got kids being left out in the cold, hooked on drugs, prayed on by god damn sharks of men. Let me tell you something sweetheart while ever men are more interested with lining their own pockets than they are with what’s going on around em this pen will always be full of Grant Wards, they all got their own story of how they got here and most of em never escape they all end up right back where they started eventually” he informs her matter of factly.

“Maybe they can change if they really try” she throws back defiantly.

“Can’t change if no-one gives you a chance darlin and non of these folks in here have a chance in hell” his words crush her although she knows he’s only telling her what he believes to be true maybe he thinks he’s doing her a kindness, she knows it’s a long shot that in all likelihood it’s too late but...

“Is it too much to hope?” she asks when they reach the main gate.

“Nawww honey when you got nothing else you got hope, can’t let that go just cause that’s the way things have always been doesn’t mean that’s the way they’ll always be. Being brave it’s not about fighting monsters in fancy suits, it’s trying for the impossible knowing you’re probably gonna fail but trying anyway” he smiles kindly at her “Night miss”

“Night”

Climbing back into the SUV she’s not sure she got what she came for, not sure of anything right now. She allows that bubble of misery to expand in her chest, folding her arms on the steering wheel she rests her head on them and cries. Not the slow trickle of tears she allowed to escape her inside but the bone wracking sobs that shake your whole body. She sits in that car and cries until her eyes run dry letting all the misery and anguish of the last few months pour out of her. None of this is OK it probably never will be but she knows she can’t hold onto this forever eventually she has to make her peace with it, has to let go she just wished she knew how.


End file.
